


all nearness pauses

by mimesere



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:55:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24419248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimesere/pseuds/mimesere
Summary: In which Jaskier is a terrible spy, Yennefer wants the world, and Geralt wants anyone at all to tell him what's going on.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 70
Kudos: 362





	all nearness pauses

For all Jaskier's faults –- and he would be the first to admit he has them, to offer up a list categorically or alphabetically or by severity (just to see Geralt roll his his eyes and say something scathing) -– he does try not to lie to himself about the important things. 

So when Geralt lays responsibility for destiny at Jaskier's feet, throws it down between them like a burden he's well rid of, Jaskier picks it up and brushes it off and carries the bits of it that are his. The djinn? certainly. No arguing with that one. That unexpectedly eventful trip to Cintra? There's no way to have known about any of that, but Jaskier can't say the initial invitation wasn't his. 

If destiny is capable of such manipulations, then Jaskier is a stone, skipped inexpertly across deep water. He wonders if it's just Geralt; perhaps there are others whose lives he's collided with, traveling some other path than they'd set out on simply because he's passed through. He doubts it. In his more morose moments, walking alone between towns, quiet and caught up in his own thoughts, he wonders if the entire purpose of his life was just to knock Geralt out of his rut and onto the path he was chosen for.

He chooses not to believe that, though he does tuck it away for consideration later when he is much more drunk and surrounded by philosophers who'll natter on about nothing concrete at all. 

What he does choose to believe given the evidence is that perhaps he can act as some kind of accidental lodestone.

So Jaskier adds Cintra to his travels more regularly. He finds invitations to play for Queen Calanthe, or at least to play at the functions she hosts. He's there to see her dote on the princess, to watch Eist teach her to sneak out. That druid friend of Geralt's fetches her home from her adventures outside the court and they fall into step together comfortably. She is as loved and safe a child as Jaskier can imagine and he'll tell Geralt so the next time they speak.

He finds Yennefer just after that and it does nothing to dissuade him from his current theories about destiny. 

Yennefer buys him a drink. They sit across from each other, silent and graceless and, where Jaskier might once have started to fill that silence with chatter or an ill advised joke, he restrains himself with her as long as he can until it's too much and he blurts out, "I'm sorry," hating himself immediately for breaking before she does.

"And what do you have to be sorry for?" she asks.

The djinn, he thinks. That she'd been the only mage at hand when he'd gone and gotten himself cursed. That Geralt had burned a wish on quieting him.

That Geralt had spent a wish to try to save her.

And this is maybe what Jaskier knows that Geralt hadn't then and doesn't now: you can't save people from themselves. They choose to stay or they don't and all you can ever do is make the choice worthwhile.

Her eyes are really very distractingly purple.

Yennefer drinks her own ale and says, casually, watching him with that unrelenting gaze. "I don't like you." She smiles and it comes nowhere near her eyes, not that she's ever really smiled at him in any way to give him a point of comparison. But he's seen her with Geralt (really, really seen her) and he knows what she looks like happy and in a fury and everything in between. 

It's a massive relief to be able to say, honestly and openly, "Oh thank goodness. I don't like you either. Obviously."  
For whatever reason, that makes her laugh and he can't help himself smiling back at her.

He thinks, very quietly to himself, _oh no_.

"You shouldn't apologize for him," Yennefer says, circling back."You shouldn't apologize at all." 

She sits there, beautiful and terrifying and he knows to the depths of his soul that she could kill him without even thinking about it, without regretting it at all and instead of running, he just wonders if he can make her laugh again.

(can he even smile, he'd thought upon seeing Geralt of Rivia: the Butcher of Blaviken, the White Wolf, terrifying monster and hunter of monsters. Alone and glowering at nothing and the most interesting person Jaskier'd ever seen.)

Jaskier thinks about trying charm. Yennefer has always seemed like a person who enjoyed being made much of. 

He drinks. He looks at her hands: graceful and strong, fingers tapping out a rhythm against the mug she's holding. He looks at the knife she wears at her waist and wonders just how good with it she is. Jaskier thinks of Geralt, sitting at that table alone and wonders at his own idiocy.

"Don't," she says. 

"Are you reading my mind?" he asks her. Can she? He's heard that they can. 

"I wouldn't waste the effort," she says. "You aren't exactly subtle."

Jaskier shrugs. She's not wrong. She rarely is, painful as it is to admit. 

"What are we to each other?" he asks. 

"What have we ever been to each other?" she asks him back. 

Given that they're even having this conversation, the answer is probably nothing at all. Or perhaps only that they are always and forever Geralt's other options. 

"Nothing," he says. She doesn't feel like nothing. Never has. 

"Do you want us to be something to each other? Rivals?" she offers. "Enemies?"

He wants, very badly, to kiss her. Or for her to kiss him. Perhaps for her to take his hand and draw him closer. "Friends?" he says and hates how much of a question it is. 

She looks at him, truly, the weight of her attention like the best kind of crowd, balanced on a knife's edge and waiting for him to tip them over into something. Laughter, violence, mockery, camaraderie. 

Yennefer leans forward then, still holding his gaze. "I thought you didn't like me." 

"I don't," he says. "But I could." 

"Do you really think so? After everything." 

Years and years of being a pebble in her boot. Of Geralt choosing her every time, running toward the biggest danger he can see instead of running sensibly away. Geralt never did have an instinct for his own survival. 

Yennefer smiles at him, slow and mocking. 

Oh well. No one's ever complimented Jaskier on his sense either.

"Yes," he says and knows it to be absolutely true

* * *

It's hard not to believe in destiny when it's staring at Yennefer from the face of a tired and frightened young woman. Or when it's determinedly not looking at Yennefer at all, focusing on everything else around the three of them like a particularly irritating guard dog. She'd knock Geralt down if only she weren't exhausted with the kind of bone deep weariness that leaches away her anger until she feels hollow. 

So she ignores Geralt as best she can. It's hard when he's being so careful of Ciri, as if having given in to fate has given him permission to indulge in his gentler impulses. He even reaches out to Yennefer sometimes, unthinking, before he remembers and pulls back again. He frowns a little when he does it, at himself, at her, she doesn't know, and it makes her want to give in. To sit next to him and let herself enjoy his dry, dry wit.

She forgets sometimes, too, and tries very hard not to enjoy the quiet way he unfurls at her hand on his shoulder, the tiniest of smiles as he ducks his head. She feels cruel when she pulls away again, not knowing how much of what she feels is because he put it there. She wants it to be simple, she wants to want Geralt easily and with all the stupid, useless warmth she'd felt that morning when he'd still been there.

Honestly, Yennefer mostly wants to scream. 

It is with some relief, then, that she finds the tavern has two rooms and Yennefer asks for them both while Geralt sees to his horse. It is with greater, though short lived, relief that she realizes the person leading the bar patrons in a cheerfully filthy song is Jaskier. He's traded his lute for a mug of what she hopes is decent beer and is flush with laughter, swaying against the impressively tall woman with her arm around his shoulders. 

Yennefer could take his beer from him and he'd let her. He'd complain about it, but he'd watch her drink it all and follow her upstairs anyway. He'd let her do a great many things to and with him. And his friend, if she liked. It would be so easy.

"Oh," says Ciri, sneaking up beside her. "I know him. He played at court. And taught me to cheat at gwent."

Yennefer almost says that she knows, that Jaskier played in Calanthe's court with the express purpose of seeing how Ciri was doing. One of Geralt's rejections watching over the other.

("She sneaks out," he told Yennefer, sounding as proud as if he'd taught her how to himself. "A born troublemaker."

"You'd know," she answered and felt him laugh.)

The door opens behind her and for a moment it's as if she's been dropped into deep water, the sudden distorted muffling of everything else and the insistent beat of her own heart all she can hear clearly. 

Geralt says something to the innkeeper, probably about his horse. The song falters and she knows that Jaskier's finally seen them. He masks it quickly behind taking a drink and picks the tune up again, stamping out the chorus with the others and turning away just enough that she can't see his face anymore. 

It's too late. It was too late when they'd walked in. 

She knows when Geralt's seen Jaskier. He goes quiet and tense, dropping into a waiting kind of stillness. A hunter waiting to flush its prey; a child waiting for a blow. 

"Fuck," he says finally. 

She shoves her saddlebag at Geralt and gives him a not entirely gentle push toward the stairs. "Go. I'll take care of this." She catches Ciri's sleeve and whispers, "Keep him up there until I get back." Ciri nods and Yennefer smiles at her, trying to soften the sharpness she can't entirely keep out of her voice. 

All right then. The song is dying into laughter and calls for other songs when Yennefer walks up to Jaskier and takes his mug. 

He is rosy cheeked and dark eyed, sweat damp hair clinging to his forehead and temples. She drinks and he watches her. The woman on his arm decides quite correctly that she wants no part of whatever this is.

"Yennefer," he says, even and so careful it makes her want to take him apart until he can't remember that he's clever, until the only thing left in him is his honesty. 

"Jaskier," she answers. "We should talk."

* * *

The first time Yennefer comes to his rescue goes something like this:

Jaskier isn't stupid; flighty, maybe, sometimes, drawn toward easy distractions, but he's not actually a fool. He knows exactly how dangerous it is to carry messages between certain people in certain positions of power who are making certain promises. He knows and he does it anyway. It had only taken Sigismund a whole two drinks, an hour of mockery, and the promise of something challenging to get him to agree. 

So it's not terribly surprising when someone -- and if Geralt were there, Jaskier would very vehemently insist that it was not his fault this time -- says something to their lover who says something to hers who says something to it doesn't matter at all really, because the end result is that Jaskier is bound and gagged and unfortunately dizzy from a blow to the head in a cave while two large men in carefully plain clothes go through his bags. He's almost insulted by the implication that he'd be fool enough to commit this kind of thing to writing.

If he's being honest, it's not the first time this kind of thing has happened. If he's being even more honest, he's definitely reached the point in the proceedings where if they'd just ungag him and ask nicely, he'd happily tell them what they want to know. 

But they don't and he doesn't. Jaskier can feel the creeping trickle of blood in his hair. It itches. There's a worrying blurriness to his vision and he fights off the violent nausea and tries not to move too much, lest it set off the headache worse. The blood in his hair itches more and Jaskier is deeply unhappy with his circumstances and he really would like for them to just ask, but he's not enough of a coward and is entirely too resentful to just volunteer information. 

"It's not here," says one of them and then dies messily and horribly, crumpling to the ground with an awful cracking sound and bleeding really, really a lot more than Jaskier can see without wanting to be sick. 

"What the fuck," says the other one and Jaskier can only agree.

They exist for one beautiful moment in absolute sympathy with one another, shock holding them both still and staring at the body. Sadly, the moment doesn't last long enough for Jaskier to get away, and the very much alive one looks at him and says, "You!"

The gag effectively prevents Jaskier from denying it, so he starts scrambling backward. His hand comes down hard on an unfairly jagged rock and slices roughly across his palm. Of course it does.

"No," says someone from the mouth of the cave. "Me."

Jaskier can honestly say that he's never been so happy to hear Yennefer sounding so irritated. Relief drains all the fear-born strength out of him and he lets himself fall backwards before he remembers that they hit him on the back of the head. It's too late to stop himself and the resulting wash of pain makes the edges of his vision go gray and spangled. 

The next thing he knows, Yennefer is standing over him and glaring down at him with a bloody sword in hand. Her cloak has feathers? Fur? He can't tell. She looks fantastic. Very fierce.

"Jaskier, I left you alone for two days" she says, sounding as disapproving and annoyed as Geralt always did. Perhaps he'd said that bit out loud.

"You don't have to work so hard to make me like you," Jaskier says and faints.

* * *

By all objective measures, the second time she saves him goes worse for everyone involved but the important thing to remember is this: neither of them is hurt anymore. 

Jaskier has a new adventure to add to his current composition. The world's had twenty years of Geralt; perhaps it's time Jaskier branched out a bit. Yennefer set three people on fire. Jaskier's doublet is bloody from the cut she'd healed, her fingers tight against his throat, anchor and bandage and a demand all in one.

The memory of it shudders down his spine. The knife. Her hands. The hotcold flash of magic knitting him together. The taste of lightning on his tongue. 

"How can I repay you, O Great and Powerful Sorceress?" Jaskier asks. He thinks about trying a bow, something with flourishes to cover up the way his hands are still shaking even as he's pulling his shirt off. He's fine, he reminds himself. They're both totally and completely and utterly fine. 

"Do you ever actually shut up?" Yennefer asks sharply. She makes it out of her dress, dropping it carelessly onto the ground with a rustle. 

"Ah, no, not really--" he starts and then she's there and she kisses him and her hands are in his hair, holding him in place and she'd kicked that bastard swordsman in the knee and then stabbed him and Jaskier had picked up a sword for the first time in ages -- since he'd finally been released from the relentless torture of not being good at it and expected to do it anyway because that's what their family did Julian, can you please just-- and stabbing a Nilfgaardian assassin while she'd been distracted by hurling spells at the mage in de Rideaux's entourage and her fingers tighten in his hair like she knows his mind is wandering.

Jaskier drops to his knees. 

Yennefer's hands are still in his hair, so he turns his head and kisses her wrist. He glances up at her and she raises her eyebrows at him, something challenging and curious in her expression. 

The floor is hard and they'd gotten him on his knees and there'd been a knife gleaming in the dark and he's abruptly furious at how banal almost dying was. At least monsters are interesting. He's going to absolutely murder Sigismund for getting him into this. His hands are still shaking and that makes him angry as well, enough that he curls them into fists on his thighs. 

"Jaskier," Yennefer says. She hasn't moved, all sharp edges and hidden dangers, the kind of woman that men dash themselves against, waves against a rocky shore. "What do you want?"

Obviously, the answer is her. It's even true. 

It's definitely what he would tell anyone else. 

She is wonderfully, distractingly, naked and perfect. He feels grubbier just being next to her. Older, too. In every possible way, she makes him deeply aware of all the ways he is a plain mortal person. 

"Do you want to touch me?" she asks. 

That sounds amazing, actually. Exactly the thing. He slides his hands up the outside of her thighs and tugs her closer. She's very warm and her skin is soft under his hands. Not for the first time, he wonders what the calluses on his fingers feel like for her. He's always loved it, personally: his own hands, the hands of the better part of the music and philosophy students at Oxenfurt, any number of chance met bards and ladies and lords and fighters and scholars. He loves them all. 

His hands have stopped shaking and the floor doesn't feel anything like cobblestones, just the solid smooth wood of the room Yennefer secured. 

"Yes," he says to the second question. And to the first: "I want to be here with you." It will do. He leaves out wanting to drown the terror and the horrid iron smell of his own blood and the absolute awful desperation of killing a large knife-wielding man creeping up behind Yennefer who was only there because he was, because he'd been made into unwilling and unknowing bait. 

"Hmmm," she says but she lets it pass. That may have something to do with the press of his mouth against the soft skin of her thigh or her own magnanimity or the way she's holding on to him, tight enough that it's hard not to do what she wants. He does what he wants instead, mostly, relishing the pull on his hair and the dull bruising ache in his knees and the noise she makes when he sucks a mark into the thin skin between her hips and belly. 

He looks up at her through his lashes and she laughs at him -- laughs! As if he doesn't know exactly what he looks like -- but she doesn't let go her grip on his hair and Jaskier decides he likes the sound of her amusement as much as he likes the sounds of her pleasure. He bites at the long lean muscle of her thigh in retaliation and she laughs again but she traces the lines of his cheekbone and brow with light fingers and it transmutes the jittery too-much feeling in his blood into something languid and golden warm.

And just like that, he lets the rest of it go -- the knife and the hardness of stone and the awful feeling of choking and the panic -- washed away by the sea salt and lightning taste of her and the knowledge that she's watching him, that she hasn't stopped, that she won't, and he loves her like he's loved every audience he's ever had and the one he hasn't.

* * *

"I see you all found each other," is the first thing Jaskier says when they get to his room and Yennefer grimaces. She wants to run every time she thinks about the way she'd looked up and of course, of course, there Geralt was. The only thing that had stopped her going anywhere else was Ciri, swaying with exhaustion on top of Roach, and the sudden storm's eye stillness of a portal closing as she crossed its threshold. 

"They found me after Sodden," she says and sits on the edge of the bed, looking around. "While I was recovering." She weighs down the word with as much sarcasm as she can. 

Jaskier's unlacing his doublet and pacing, but he stops at that. "You're all right? I heard--"

Yennefer shrugs, not particularly wanting to dwell on how tired she still is or the way she feels like a bucket with a small hole in it, a slow drip drip drip of energy that Tissaia and Triss both swore would heal as long as she didn't do anything too taxing. 

He stares at her for a long moment, his mouth a tight unhappy line. But he lets it go, like she knew he would and she's annoyed by her own relief. Geralt looms moodily until she tells him what he wants to know just to make him go away again and she doesn't have the heart to snap at Ciri, who tries very hard to ignore the awkward silences and barbed conversations. 

Jaskier resumes pacing, long strides taking him from one end of the room and back over and over again. Yennefer lies back and feels the bed dip next to her after a moment. Jaskier falls backwards and then shifts about until they're pressed against each other, warmth all along one side from shoulder to knee. She relaxes into him and the bed and lets her thoughts drift.

"I'll leave tomorrow," Jaskier says quietly. "I was only planning to stay here a few days anyway."

"You don't have to," she says. Yennefer doesn't know what she wants him to do. It's been a few months since she's seen Jaskier last and she finds that she's missed him.

Honestly, fuck Geralt. 

"It's a long walk to Oxenfurt," he says. 

"Are they giving you students again?" she asks. 

Jaskier hums thoughtfully. "You'd think they'd stop after the last time, wouldn't you?"

Yennefer's never really had the knack for teaching. She can hardly believe that Jaskier does, easily distracted as he is, but she's also watched him ramble on to a stern looking tutor about some damn thing about music and numbers until the tutor's mouth had softened into a delighted smirk and they'd spent the rest of the night flirting shamelessly and drawing out the principles of their argument on a table in spilled wine. She fucked Jaskier that night while he laughed and teased her for her jealousy. 

She drifts again in the quiet between them. It's nice. Peaceful. 

She doesn't want to go find Geralt or Ciri or all their expectations.

"You could come with me," Jaskier says as if he's plucked the thought from her head.

Yennefer considers it, she does, flips through the branching possibilities in her mind and in all of them -- going with Jaskier, staying with Geralt, leaving both of them behind and going back to Aretuza or wherever Tissaia sets up next -- she wants what she doesn't have. She wants all of it at once, together, so she never has to choose between all the pieces of herself she's given away.

Yennefer takes his hand and he hisses at the bright sharp shock that's been plaguing her since Sodden. She starts to pull away and he laces their fingers together instead. 

"No, you'd get bored and probably curse some poor lordling who just wants to learn rhetoric," he says lightly, as if he's not holding her hand like he has no intention of letting go.

"Oh, at least five of them. I've met their fathers."

"And their grandfathers," Jaskier says. 

Yennefer kicks him in the ankle. "Fuck off," she says.

Yennefer stays with him while he packs, somehow fitting an improbably large amount of clothing into his bags, detuning the harp (yes, yes, one owner from new, lovely mellow tone, look at this inlay) and the small drum (it's not an indulgence! Stop laughing!), and tucking away a flute of some kind. 

He sheds his doublet entirely in the process and the scar on his neck catches her eye. No doubt any other mage would have healed it clean, but Yennefer's skills have always been stronger in tearing things apart than putting them back together. And he's alive, really, which is the important part and only pure, stupid luck the reason she was in any position to help at all.

She hates the thought.

She hates that she wants to tie him to her, the lightest of leads, gossamer thin and just enough for her to know she can find him at need. It's just that she hates the thought of leaving something she can control to chance more.

"What was it you said about the wish?" Yennefer asks and Jaskier goes very still. She doesn't blame him. She'd thrown a shoe at him the last time they'd talked about it and she wants to get up and start pacing herself. 

"Um," he says, offering them both an out if she wants it. "Probably a lot of wank?"

Yennefer rolls her eyes. "I promise not to get angry."

It's an absurd promise and they both know it. Jaskier communicates this eloquently in the skeptical tilt of his head.

"I promise not to break anything," she says. She is certain she can manage that.

"I don't think Geralt changed you," Jaskier says in a rush. 

Right. Yes. That's what she remembered him saying. She shoves the anger behind a hastily built wall in her mind and tosses in the resentment that of _course_ Jaskier doesn't think Geralt would do--

"I think he just. Wanted to know he would see you again?" Jaskier shrugs, too deliberately casual, and adds, "without leaving it to destiny."

She hears him better this time, she thinks. Maybe. The last time there'd been a lot of talk about dice and chance and the likelihood of certain numbers and betting. 

Fuck. "You're sure," she asks. Geralt's dislike for the entire concept of destiny is one of the more interesting parts of him. 

"Yenn," he says and stops. His face does a complicated thing that she can't read entirely and she finds, to her surprise, that she wants to know. She wants to pull Jaskier to pieces, to read him like a book written in a language made just for her, and to put him back together at the end of it in the sure knowledge that she could. That he'd let her. 

"What?"

"Do you for one moment think that Geralt knows what he wants enough to have changed you to fit it?"

"So he changed the world," she starts and she's promised not to be angry, she promised, but it's ludicrous. "I know for certain it's easier to change a person."

"Is it?" he asks. 

What is it about her that draws romantic fools? 

What is it about romantic fools that draws her? 

"I want to know I can find you if you're in trouble," Yennefer says finally, coolly. "Without leaving it to chance."

Jaskier looks dumbfounded. "I'll be in Oxenfurt--"

"No," she says. 

"Ah, I definitely will be. We were just talking about it, remember? I'm going to lecture on the relationship between--"

"Jaskier."

"I don't see a convenient djinn inhabited amphora laying about unless you've managed to pull that one off in the last two months," he says.

"I don't need a djinn for this." Technically, she doesn't really need his agreement either but she is trying to be better about this sort of thing.

Jaskier sets his pack aside and comes over to kneel in front of her, bracing his arms across her thighs and looking at her. "Yenn. You want to put a leash on me?"

It sounds so much worse when he says it like that and she goes cold and sharp in the embarrassment of knowing that she absolutely does. "To save your life."

It's different. It's not the same as a wish at all. 

His gaze is steady. "You want to know where I am."

She nods. Yennefer has spent most of her life telling the world to go fuck itself and dictating the terms of her engagement. Unfortunately, the world has spent her entire life doing the same and with more success. She can't stand it. She hates losing.

"All right," Jaskier says. For a fleeting moment something raw and horribly vulnerable crosses his face, a cousin of the way he looks when she tells him to stay the night. There and gone again and he smiles up at her like it hadn't even happened. "I never said I had a problem wearing your leash."

Yennefer lays her hand on his head. His hair is cool and smooth under her fingers. It's lighter than it used to be, bleached by long miles walking from town to town and age, another reminder that losing is inevitable. There's probably a more elegant way to do what she wants, something clever and subtle and unobtrusive. Triss could come up with one, no doubt, with her gardener's patience and tiny nudges. Tissaia would have already bound him with challenge and gratitude and favor after favor after obligation until he was dizzy with it. Yennefer's never been subtle.

She imagines a rope first: the kind sailors use for their sails, humming with tension and information about speed and direction and force if you know how to read it. She can feel Jaskier at the end of it, far away and muffled and still not a book she can read. So she changes the metaphor, redraws the two of them onto either side of a chasm and builds a bridge, something like a miner's shortcut, and feels him jerk under her hand. 

It's enough. She can find him with it. She can feel him through it, the low satisfied murmur Jaskier makes when he's just on the edge of sleep and the sharp edges Geralt left behind and always, always the faint sound of music. 

"All right?" she asks. It's like she can see him out of the corner of her eye or hear him playing through sturdy walls and floors. Unobtrusive enough for what she wants and reassuringly there.

"Yeah," he says, sounding breathless and his eyes wide. "Fine. Absolutely fantastic."

She spends the night and it is exactly what she wanted when she saw him earlier. Jaskier is gratifyingly enthusiastic about following her lead and begs exactly the way she wants him to, voice gone rough and ragged with wanting while she fucks him. And even so, he watches her like he watched Geralt, something sharp and knowing ticking along while he bites his lip and the crow's feet at his eyes deepen with his laughter.

The next morning is as irritating as she thought it might be, though Geralt's careful non-expression when she escorts Jaskier downstairs is everything she could have hoped for. Jaskier's tangle of music and feeling goes briefly silent, a held breath before it comes crashing back in, a mess of fondness and hurt and a discordant trill of spite. 

"Geralt," says Jaskier, even and light. Cordial. He sets his bags down to pay the innkeeper, every line of his body saying he couldn't possibly care less about the glowering witcher not five feet away from him. "I hope you're doing well."

"What are you doing here?" Geralt asks impatiently. Yennefer feels the urge to scream bubbling up again but it falters under Jaskier's response.

"Paying my bill and leaving." Jaskier's tone is mild. He finishes with the innkeeper then picks up his bags, settling them with the familiarity of years of travel. He nods at Yennefer and Ciri. "Ladies."

He steps around Geralt and heads toward the door, still loose limbed and relaxed. The music in Yennefer's head is still a mess, faster and more chaotic than Jaskier's showing. The long, road eating stride he's settling into has him to the door while Geralt is turning to face him

For the first time in a long while, Yennefer wishes she knew what Geralt was thinking. All the tension Jaskier was keeping out of his own body is there in Geralt's and he's taken a few steps forward before stopping and watching Jaskier go.

* * *

The repeated questioning and occasional beating probably mean that Ciri got away through the portal Yenn opened. And while Geralt would normally find it incredibly irritating that she didn't bother telling him her contingency plans, he's grateful for it now when he can't give up information he doesn't have.

He'd tell her so if he knew where she was. 

It's been weeks now and he hasn't seen her since she fell, a cloud of something glinting and dark drifting around her while she dropped like a stone and the baron's guard swarmed around the two of them. 

Geralt hadn't seen what hit him. Just an explosion of pain and dizziness and he woke up alone, unarmed, and in a cell. 

He's dangerous, even so. He's made sure the guards keeping watch know that. 

Footsteps echo off the solid stone walls. There's something in the rhythm of those steps that demands Geralt's attention. Someone moving quietly, quickly, nothing like the familiar, solid tread of the guards assigned to this squalid little dungeon. Strange. Unexpected. 

His experience says that this is trouble and he tenses against it, readying himself for another try at escaping through sheer stubborn force.

His instinct does not and his frustration at this betrayal -- what good has any of this shit been if it keeps failing him when he needs it the most -- flushes cold and angry through him. Useless. 

Geralt doesn't move. The footsteps come closer then stop. Familiar, impossible, a flood of contradiction and information that doesn't fit. When he looks up, there's a moment where everything keeps not making sense: the hair, a beard, plain dark clothing. 

Then the man says, "Geralt," with all the weight of twenty years travel together and it all comes into focus.

"Jaskier," says Geralt.

There's still a part of him whispering danger, but it's drowned out by the simple relief of not being alone.

Jaskier unlocks the cell. "We should find you a weapon," he says and tosses the keys to Geralt. "I don't know if anyone else is here."

"Yennefer--"

"She's not here," Jaskier says, certain. He's already turning away when Geralt reaches out and catches at his sleeve. It's tacky and cool under his fingers and Jaskier's expression blanks when he looks down at where Geralt is holding him. 

"How do you know she's not here?" Geralt asks.

Jaskier opens his mouth, then shuts it again, lips pressed tight. "That is a longer and considerably weirder story than we have time for," he says and must see that Geralt is gearing up to not care about how long or bizarre the story is. "And for some of the finer points, we'll need Yenn."

And so. Jaskier leads, Geralt follows and starts making a list of questions that starts with "what the fuck is this" and continues on from there. They find the armory and Geralt picks up his sword and his mutagens and watches while Jaskier picks up another sword, lighter and whippier than Geralt's own. "I couldn't bring one," he says, like that's any kind of explanation, and they're off again. 

Geralt kills two guards on the way and Jaskier another, grimacing the whole while. They stop every now and then while Jaskier closes his eyes, for all the world like he's listening to a song he hasn't heard before and trying to make out the words. 

"What the fuck are you doing," Geralt says and Jaskier shushes him impatiently. He takes them back into the house, swearing, and down to the cellars. Something about the air scratches at Geralt's throat and he doesn't cough or choke, but it's a near thing. Jaskier's still muttering to himself, half insults and threats and half only what sounds like please, pushing at wine racks and casks until there's a click and the shelves swing open to reveal another corridor. The air is acrid and Geralt can't stop himself from coughing then and braces himself against the dizziness that comes with it. 

"That doesn't seem good," says Jaskier. His hand is warm where it's cupped around Geralt's elbow, steadying him. 

"Can't you smell that?" asks Geralt. His breath feels raspy in his chest, heavy like he's trying to breath through a thick fog. 

"No," says Jaskier. He sounds...sad? Worried? Something Geralt can't untangle. "I don't have magic."

Geralt can't tell if the cold rush through his veins is from the lack of air or an abundance of fear. 

"We should go," says Jaskier and Geralt nods. They take off down the corridor. Jaskier's grip is solid around Geralt's arm and he feels steady at Geralt's side. 

It gets worse the further they go. Jaskier pulls Geralt to the side, between two braziers. He pulls out a handkerchief, dampening it with some water from a skin at his side. 

"Try this," he says, holding it loosely over Geralt's nose and mouth. He looks consideringly at the brazier next to him, thin smoke curling up from some kind of incense and dumps some water on it. "Better or worse?"

Geralt shrugs. "Hm. Can't tell yet."

Jaskier hums a little, a thoughtful noise Geralt's heard him make a thousand times. "It's probably not going to get better," he says. 

"And you think Yennefer's here."

"I think that the baron here does quite a lot of trade with Nilfgaard," Jaskier says. "And I think that Nilfgaard has a number of ways to deal with mages they don't want to face head on."

They finally find a door. It looks heavy and the lock is substantial. Jaskier pulls out a keyring and starts trying the keys until one turns with a satisfying click. There's a moment when Geralt can see Yennefer on a bed, eyes closed and still, before the smell hits him again and drives him to his knees while he coughs. 

"Shit," he hears Jaskier say before Geralt's being pulled around to the side of the door and propped up against the wall. "Stay," he's ordered, as if he could do anything else.

Jaskier goes in and all Geralt can hear after that is the low murmur of his voice. He wonders if Yenn is awake or if Jaskier is talking just to fill the silence. He gets his answer a few minutes later when Jaskier comes out of the room carrying Yennefer.

"Is she--"

"Asleep," Jaskier says firmly. "She'll be fine. Are you all right?"

"I will be," says Geralt. His fingers tighten on the hilt of his sword. He wants very badly to hit something as hard as he can and in this moment, he's not terribly particular about what it is. 

Geralt leads the way out and hates every wavering, stumbling step he takes for revealing that he's not at his best, not that Jaskier seems to care or even notice. He's still talking, a low insistent murmur of noise that Yennefer hasn't answered once, when they get out of the manor house and down the drive. Geralt's breathing is coming easier and he's steadier on his feet the further they get. They're almost clear when a loud clamor comes up behind them.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," says Jaskier. He pushes into a jog for a moment before dropping back to a quick walk. 

Geralt doesn't stop. "What?"

"Ah, I might have bludgeoned their lord to death," he says. "There was a lot--" he swallows hard and finishes, "We should really not be here anymore."

" _What?_ "

There are guards at the gate. They make an attempt to stop the three of them from leaving. It goes poorly for them.

"Are you going to be able to ride?" Jaskier asks. "I brought horses."

"I can ride," says Geralt. He wants to take Yennefer away from Jaskier's increasingly shaky grip. He almost offers but he doesn't know if he can control himself, the horse, and an unconscious Yenn. 

It doesn't matter, in the end; they ride, Yennefer continues not to wake up, and neither Jaskier nor Geralt says a word until dawn. 

"Where are we going?" Geralt finally asks. 

"Right now, a cave," says Jaskier. "After that? Kerack. There's a house there where you should be safe."

Safety seems unlikely in any spot Jaskier's chosen; besides which, it's safer for all of them if Jaskier doesn't know where they are. Geralt just has to find Ciri again. No doubt, Yennefer will say something mocking and open a portal to wherever she's stashed Ciri and they can be done with this particular adventure. 

The cave is all right for a cave. There's water nearby and it looks like Jaskier's stashed away food and bed rolls against their arrival. They set up camp, moving around each other with the ease of familiarity, dropping into the rhythm of countless nights doing this exact thing. Jaskier sets Yennefer down carefully into the first set of bedding, smoothing the blanket over her with a pat.

"Has she woken up at all?" Geralt asks. He lays kindling and doesn't look at Jaskier. 

"No," he says. Then, as if he's convincing himself, "She will."

The fire starts easily enough. Geralt grabs a pot and goes to fill it with water, trusting that Jaskier will have assembled something that looks like a meal from whatever he's brought with him. Geralt takes a few moments at the stream edge and tries to focus on what needs to happen once Yenn is awake. They need to find Ciri again. They need somewhere safe. The whole idea of it is strange enough that Geralt can't entirely wrap his head around where to start looking. The stream has no answers for him. He fills the pot and goes back.

As expected, Jaskier's pulled out some kind of cheese and sausage and bread, setting them out with a knife and some apples, bruised and wrinkled, but still the best thing Geralt's eaten in weeks.

In the firelight, Jaskier looks exhausted and entirely unlike himself. The close trimmed beard and hair change the shape of his face and the somber colors he's wearing make him look paler, more severe. He looks wrong, too serious and closed down, in ways that Geralt finds unsettling. 

"How did you know where we were?" he asks.

Jaskier gestures at Yennefer, then says: "Ciri described the livery. It wasn't hard to put it together."

"You know where Ciri is?"

"Having a fine time learning philosophy, I'd guess," grumbles Jaskier. "Running rings around my students and shaming them into trying harder, if I'm lucky." At Geralt's sudden tension he says plainly, "Oxenfurt. Pretending at being my cousin in for a visit."

Geralt closes his eyes. "Why would Yennefer send her to you?"

Jaskier sighs heavily and he rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I can think of five reasons offhand, but you'd have to ask her if you want to know what she was thinking."

"Why do you think she did?" Geralt asks. There is something here that he can't see and doesn't know if he wants to, something sleek and new that he doesn't know the shape of yet. 

Jaskier starts counting off reasons on his fingers. "Ciri knows me, Yenn knew where I was, it's easy enough to disguise a young woman as a boy for the purposes of hiding her, a city is a decent enough place to hide a single person." He pauses for the tiniest of moments, then says, "You wouldn't have sent her to me."

Geralt doesn't know if that's a simple statement of fact or one of Yennefer's possible reasons; either way, it makes the bread he's eaten sit uneasy and rocklike in his stomach. 

"You can't tell people a thing you wouldn't even dream of, right?" Jaskier smiles at him and there's a sharp, sardonic edge to it that Geralt doesn't remember from before. Jaskier claps his hands together then spreads his hands out and he says, still smiling that unfamiliar smile, "You should get some rest."

There are a hundred more questions Geralt wants to ask, but Jaskier's already turned away and is rummaging through his packs. 

There's a bedroll ready by Yennefer and Geralt settles into it. As he's drifting off, he thinks he hears Jaskier say, "I can hear you, you insufferable arse. I know you're there." He just can't make it make sense and sleep takes him.

* * *

Geralt wakes to shouting. He scrambles for his sword and to his feet, but the only threat is Yennefer, unsteady on her feet and shouting at Jaskier, who has his hands on his hips and is sputtering in outrage. 

"What the fuck?" asks Geralt. 

Yennefer ignores him. "I didn't send her to you so you could turn around and leave her behind!" 

"Oh, as if I was just going to not come after you." Jaskier throws his hands up and starts to pace. "Do you have any--of course you don't." 

"You were supposed to protect her!" Yennefer starts moving around the fire to get to him and staggers. Geralt gets there first, steadying her until she shakes him off. Jaskier's taken a few steps closer toward her, but drops his outstretched hand. 

"Yenn. Yennefer. What about me has ever suggested I could protect anyone?" Jaskier stands in front of the both of them, gesturing at himself. "She's not my child surprise! Destiny took one look at me and declined to engage my services as a guardian! Of course I came after you. You're the ones who are supposed to keep her safe!"

Yenn makes an inarticulate noise. 

"How did you find us?" askes Geralt into the ensuing silence. "You said Ciri described the livery, but that's just a person, not the place. How did you actually find us?"

Jaskier opens his mouth. Shuts it again. He looks at Yennefer, who looks back at him and makes a go on gesture. "I didn't? I found her."

As one, Geralt and Yennefer both say, "What?" 

"I found Yennefer?" he says again. "Because of the--" And he gestures at his own head, drawing a loose circle and raising his eyebrows at Yennefer.

She stares at him blankly for a moment then says, "It goes both ways?"

"Er. Yes? Didn't you mean it to?"

"No! I would have said!"

Geralt reaches down to pick up the sword sheath he'd discarded in his abrupt awakening. "Can someone please explain to me what the fuck you two are talking about?"

"I tied us together," Yennefer says finally. "So I could find him when I needed to, because he's an idiot and kept almost dying."

Jaskier gasps in outrage. "One time! I almost died one time!"

"You are honestly the absolute worst spy," says Yennefer. "And it was at least twice."

"You made it so you could find him," Geralt interrupts before it can descend further into an argument. 

"And so I could find her," says Jaskier. "Apparently without intending to."

Yennefer sighs. "And Ciri is?" 

"At the university in Oxenfurt," Jaskiers answers promptly. "Absolutely fine. We did cut her hair, though."

"You were supposed to hide her!" Yennefer shouts at him. "Not send her to lectures."

"You didn't exactly leave me detailed instructions on what to do with her," says Jaskier. "She just accosted me in my rooms and said you were in trouble and what were we going to do about it."

Yennefer just frowns at him. "I did leave instructions. Ciri should have--oh."

And like that, Jaskier is all smiles again. "Left it up to Ciri, did you?"

"Shut up," Yennefer says. "How was I supposed to know she'd have as much sense as you?"

Geralt is lost, his annoyance rising as tension bleeds out of the other two. 

"I did tell you," says Jaskier. 

Yennefer waves a hand at him and sits down abruptly, gone pale and shaking. Geralt hands her his water skin and she takes it, their fingers brushing. A spark jumps between them and Yennefer frowns, shaking her hand. Geralt closes his fingers around the feeling, the way he always does. Jaskier brings her some bread and cheese and she eats it quickly, efficiently. 

"What now?" asks Geralt. 

"Does no one listen to me?" says Jaskier. 

"No," says Yennefer.

Jaskier makes a face at her, then looks at Geralt as if expecting help. Geralt shrugs. "You didn't say much."

"Go to Kerack. Recover from your ordeal. Do whatever it was you were going to do after that."

Geralt looks at him then. "And you?"

He's not sure what he's expecting from Jaskier's answer. The shrug and glance down at the ground isn't it, though. "Go back to the university. Charm all my students into adoration and a desperate yearning for my approval."

"Shave that awful beard," says Yennefer.

"Shave this awful beard," Jaskier agrees. "It makes me look more dignified, yeah?"

"No," she says. "It makes you look terrible. And old."

"Ah, well, it was an effective disguise then."

"You could come with us," says Geralt and immediately wants to take the words back as being too much.

Jaskier looks at him and Geralt is the one to look away first. "No. You made your feelings very clear." The worst part is that he says it lightly, the way he'd comment on the weather. Yennefer sits up and he points at her. "No." 

She starts anyway. "Jaskier--"

"I am trying," he says and his voice cracks as he does. Jaskier closes his eyes and when he opens them again, he looks calmer. "I'll take you to Kerack. I'll bring Ciri to you. And then you can do whatever it is that makes you happy. Save a monster. Kill a wizard. Fade into the mists of legend and raise your troublemaking destiny. Excuse me." And he leaves. 

Geralt looks at Yennefer, who shakes her head at him. "He's not upset with me," she says.

"It's probably better this way," Geralt says.

"You're both fools," she says and keeps eating.

True to his word, Jaskier escorts them to a small house overlooking the coast in Kerack. It's solidly built and dust-filled, sheets covering all the furniture. A portrait of a severe looking woman with familiar eyes gazes sternly at them from the dining room. Jaskier leaves them money, directions to the nearest town, and then he's off again. 

Yennefer sleeps for most of the time he's gone. Geralt wanders through the rooms of the house, through the books in the library, and finds books of poetry and ballads hidden away in the music room, inscribed with a flourishing J.A.P. in the corners. He listens to the ocean churning away beneath them. There's something familiar about it all; he keeps expecting to find something he recognizes every time he opens a new door, but there's nothing. 

It's very quiet and very dull. 

He's certain it's boredom that brings Yennefer to his side days later. He can feel her looking at him and it makes him want to stand straighter, to set his shoulders back and let her look her fill.

She's silent for what feels like ages. He's starting to think that she just came out to look at the ocean. He glances over at her, windblown and stark in black and white. She's beautiful and when she finally speaks, it's nothing he was expecting. "I'm tired of being angry at you." 

Geralt cannot stop himself laughing. "Have you ever not been angry at me?"

"There were a few hours," she says. "And now."

They had been, he thinks, the happiest few hours of his whole life. To want and be wanted, to stay and know that his presence was a source of joy. "Why now?"

"There's nothing to do in this house but think and read," she says. 

"Hm," says Geralt. It's true.

Yennefer folds her arms across the top of the balcony railing and leans against it. She glances at him sidelong and he meets her eyes directly, tired through and through of pretending. "I went to Sodden and I wasn't..." She sighs and looks away. "I was tired. Of everything. Do you understand?"

He does. He thinks he does. There have been days when the thought of what happens after a hunt is exhausting enough to dread making it that far. Or when it feels like he can see the endless stretch days in front of him, hunting and killing and grabbing a drink alone before doing it all over again and again and again. 

But this isn't about him, so he nods and stays quiet, afraid of breaking her mood.

"And there you were again. And Ciri. And there was finally something to feel other than tired."

"Angry," he says and his heart sinks when she shrugs. "What's changed?"

She doesn't say anything for a long, long moment. "Being angry at you doesn't get me what I want."

"And what do you want?"

Yennefer smiles at him, fierce and terrifying in all of Geralt's favorite ways. "Everything," she says. "Just like always." 

She holds out her hand to him expectantly. Geralt takes it but doesn't move. "And you're not angry at me?" he asks.

"I'm not angry at you now," she says. "I'm certain you'll do something to piss me off in the next few days. And after that. And after that again. You're infuriating."

"Terrible," he agrees, but he feels lighter. Like it's a joke shared between the two of them. 

"We're all terrible," she says and leads him into the house. 

The bedroom she's claimed as her own -- that Jaskier had led her to, a wry twist to his mouth that Geralt couldn't read then and doesn't understand now -- is bright and airy, most of one wall taken up with windows looking out over the endless expanse of water. The furniture is all long, clean lines, the fashion of fifty or sixty years ago. Yennefer draws the eye wherever she goes, but especially so here, rich and vibrant against this backdrop. 

She unlaces her dress and lets it drop to the plush carpet under their feet. Piece by piece she disrobes and he waits for the heavy thump as she drops each bit, as if it were his own armor. And when she's done, vulnerable and limned in the clear white-gold of sunlight, she's still every inch as formidable as she's ever been. She's a tempest held together by sheer force of will and he loves her the way he loves the storm: reverent and terrified and breathless with awe. All the things he told himself he didn't feel, he can feel for her, secure in the knowledge that she'll be standing at the end of it all.

"You're a bit overdressed, don't you think?" Obligingly, he pulls his shirt over his head and drops it while she gets to work on his trousers and the rest of it. "This is his house, you know."

Geralt has no idea what she's talking about. "What?"

Yennefer pushes him onto the bed and climbs up after him, straddling his waist and smiling down at him. "This is Jaskier's house. This is where he brought us to keep us safe."

"His house--why are we talking about Jaskier now?" Geralt asks. 

"I told you." She leans over and kisses him thoroughly. "I want everything."

He kisses her back because he's never been able to do anything but that. And when he has his breath back, he says, "What?"

"He's mine and I want him," she says. Her lips brush against his ear when she whispers, "He's yours, too." 

Geralt closes his eyes at that and shakes his head. Even as he does so, he feels the truth of it in every persistent mile and song. She tugs on his hair, turning his head to face the door neither of them had bothered closing.

He knows before he opens his eyes that Jaskier is there. He recognizes the scent of him now, in this room and everywhere else in the house -- _his_ house -- and some fractious, worrying voice in Geralt's head finally settles into quiet. Into that still, silent space, Geralt thinks: _I've missed you_.

A year alone with the quiet, dull passing of days and no one who cared to know him. No obligations. No one to push against and to have them push back. He shudders to think of it now, that he'd asked for and been granted this particular wish. 

"Gross," says Ciri, deadpan over Jaskier's sputter. "I'm getting some food."

Geralt opens his eyes to find Jaskier alone in the doorway, frowning at Yennefer. "You couldn't wait?" Jaskier asks. "I was planning to leave tonight."

"I did wait," she says. "My timing is fantastic."

"You knew he was coming," says Geralt. 

Yennefer pats Geralt on the chest. "I knew he was close, yes."

"Yenn--" Jaskier starts, low and furious and Geralt absolutely cannot hear this again.

"Stay," Geralt says. He sits up, bracing Yennefer with a hand at the small of her back and she smiles smugly at him. Jaskier watches the both of them greedily before he schools himself back into that awful politeness and Geralt can see why Yennefer thought this would work. 

Jaskier takes a deep breath and the polite mask cracks. "You don't get to say that. You don't--" He takes another breath and it looks like it hurts for Jaskier to rein himself in. Even so, his voice shakes with an overflow of the fury and hurt Geralt can smell on him. "I spent twenty years trying to be your friend and you didn't want me. I am trying to take myself off your hands and you tell me to stay." 

It can't have been twenty years, Geralt thinks. But it's there in the silvering hair and deepening lines around his mouth and eyes and Geralt is abruptly reminded that Jaskier isn't like them. 

Jaskier scrubs his fingers through his short cut hair and laughs. Whatever the joke is, Geralt suspects he won't like it. "I thought it was a test. Every time you rode ahead and I had to catch up. And when you said you didn't like my singing! Everyone likes my singing, Geralt! I am continentally famous for singing well, you uncultured arsehole! When you punched me in the cock! I thought, oh, he wants to make sure I mean it and I _did_ and sometimes you'd smile." He presses his fingertips against his closed eyes and makes a noise that Geralt hopes is another laugh, however rueful. "Sometimes you'd smile at me and it was worth every part."

He drops his hands then and lets out a long breath. Geralt looks to Yennefer for...anything. Help. To say anything at all and she just raises her eyebrows at him. 

"Jaskier," he starts and trails off. 

"I want to give you whatever it is you want from me," says Jaskier, sounding frustrated. "I just don't know what that is."

We could head to the coast, Jaskier had said on that mountain. And here they were. 

I want everything, Yennefer had said. He's yours too.

It's like an avalanche starting: he remembers every time he's crossed paths with the three of them, or fallen just behind them, every absurd step that had to fall just right to bring them all to this place. Ciri, Yennefer, and Jaskier exist at the end of every road Geralt wants to take. He's tried walking away from all of them and failed every time.

"Jaskier," says Geralt, taken with a rush of desperate affection. He holds out his hand. "Come here."

And, to his surprise, Jaskier does. 

He mutters to himself while he pulls off his doublet and shirt and strips off the rest of his clothes as quickly as possible. If Geralt had been expecting some kind of art to it, a flourish or grace or anything but focused determination, he is quickly proven wrong. 

Yennefer leans in, wrapping her arms around Geralt's neck and says, in a perfectly conversational tone and volume, "He enjoys biting."

"I do," agrees Jaskier. "And don't be smug."

"I'll be as smug as I like," she says. "He also likes it when you tell him what to do."

Jaskier scoffs at her. "Only sometimes." He kneels on the bed behind her, close enough that Geralt's arm brushes against Jaskier's stomach. "Well?"

Geralt is pleased to note that Jaskier gets her least impressed expression too. "Kiss me," Yennefer says and Geralt watches Jaskier do so. He's seen Jaskier kiss any number of people, but never close enough to see his brow furrow in concentration or the way he smiles, a small private quirk of his mouth, before he goes in for another kiss. Yennefer's smiling when they're done and she tilts her head toward Geralt. "Now him."

There's the smallest hesitation before Jaskier leans in over Yennefer's shoulder and kisses Geralt. Jaskier is careful and thorough and focused, the opposite of every other aspect of his life, and brings a hand up to curl around the back of Geralt's neck, nudging him gently into a better angle. There's nothing earth shattering here; no excess. Just the quiet steady warmth of a well made fire or a hot bath. It's nothing like what Geralt would have expected, if he admitted to expecting anything at all. 

When Jaskier pulls back, he doesn't go far, just presses his forehead against Geralt's for a moment and he...laughs? Geralt thinks it's a laugh. It's barely more than a breath. "All right then," Jaskier says when he draws back fully and it takes everything Geralt has not to reach out himself, to hold on instead of letting him withdraw further. 

If anyone had asked him what the three of them together might be like, Geralt is certain that he would have said impossible. Unimaginable. Chaotic, at best. That Yennefer and Jaskier's egos would crash against each other in some awful scramble to outdo the other. Instead, they move together like they've done this before and he can't help but wonder who else they've done this with -- each other, obviously, some bored aristocrat's husband, the countess de Stael? -- and what he was doing without them. 

Nothing worth noting, he admits to himself, and then he's done really thinking at all. 

When he tries to recall it later, all he remembers are moments: the fall of Yennefer's hair around their faces while she kisses him; the curve of her neck when she leans her head against Jaskier's shoulder as she's riding Geralt; Jaskier's mouth on Geralt's cock and the shameless noises he makes when Geralt strokes his hair; Yennefer's tuneless humming when they're all tangled together, heavy eyed and loose limbed, her head on his shoulder and Jaskier's arm around her waist.

"I should go," Jaskier mumbles but before he can move, Geralt reaches down and takes Jaskier's hand in his. There's a jagged scar across his palm that Geralt doesn't know and he rubs his thumb over it before settling their joined hands onto Yennefer's stomach.

Geralt can feel Jaskier looking at him, so he says, "You don't have to." And then, remembering Jaskier sitting next to him on a rock on a mountain and quietly offering an escape, he says, "I want you to stay." And for clarity's sake, he adds, "With me. Us."

Yennefer's stopped her humming and the words fall awkwardly into the lingering quiet like stones into a lake. Jaskier lifts his head, propping his chin up on his hand, and just looks at Geralt with the same tiny smile he'd had while kissing Yenn. 

Yennefer starts laughing, a full happy sound he's never heard from her before. "You're _terrible_ at this." 

Jaskier smacks her on the shoulder lightly. "He's trying. Hush. You'll scare him off his feelings again."

The look they share is fond and speaks to some shared language that Geralt doesn't know. But as Geralt leans over to kiss Jasker, then Yennefer, he lets himself believe that he will know it in time. That he'll learn all their expressions and moods, a catalog of two. 

The sunlight is warm where it spills through the windows and over them. Geralt can hear Ciri exploring the rest of the house and for the first time in what feels like years, he is exactly where he wants to be.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a tiny amusing fic about pegging. it is not that.


End file.
